An electronic message such as an email, SMS, or the like usually includes a message body and a message head, optionally attachments. The message body usually is a single data field containing the main content of the message in text form. Optionally, the text may be formatted and may include hyper links, signature code or image, and/or embedded media files. The message head usually includes a plurality of data fields and should at least include a recipient address field (known as “To” field), and a sender address field (known as “From” field). Additionally, the message head may include data fields dedicated for a subject text, addresses of an additional recipient (carbon copy recipient, known as “Cc” field) and/or a hidden additional recipient (blind carbon copy recipient, known as “Bcc” field), and selectors like Relevancy, Privacy, Verification-of-Receipt, and others. The address fields usually are prepared for including one or more data items each representing a single address. More than one item in an address field may be referred to as an address list which are, on a data level, usually separated by some delimiting character(-s). The sender address field usually includes a single sender address as a data item. In a messaging client's user interface, each data field to be defined/filled by a user may be represented by a tab or input box, a checkbox, a scroll menu, a control button, or the like.
Currently, the only way to set the recipient address in an email is by manually editing the recipient tab (or field). This method has the drawback that it requires an explicit action. If someone wants to send one same email massively to several recipients which do not belong to a group, and each message should be personalised (like an email from a bank or from a Human Resources (HR) department), the user has to repeat this action hundreds or thousands of times.
Up to now the only methods existing to help in this problem is first the auto-complete feature which keeps in a cache a list of email accounts that have been used (meaning sent to or received an email from them) and suggests them by just typing some letters from the recipient's email account in the recipient's tab. Second for the case of sending one same email to a large number of people that cannot be grouped, there is the OUTLOOK* “template” or “forms” method in which a user can create personalised templates or forms including the recipients account, save them and use them in the future (note that terms marked by an asterisk (*) here and throughout this application may be subject to trademark protection by their respective owners; mentioning such terms in this application is purely for illustrating the background or possible application of the present invention).
An OUTLOOK* plug-in (“PhraseExpress”) is known to provide text modules and a number of macros, which can be incorporated in the text modules. Such macros allow for automatic adaptation of a text module to the present requirements (e.g. one macro may determine the gender of a recipient and another macro uses this to adapt the salutation accordingly). The already filled “To” field, other (marked) emails, etc. are used by the macros to pick up the required information.
The sender address field is usually filled automatically by the email client's main algorithm. In case a user uses more than one email client and/or addresses simultaneously, the user may manually select or fill the proper address in the sender address tab.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method, a device and a software product for filling an address field of an electronic message which are able to at least partly alleviate the drawbacks of the prior art as mentioned above. In particular, an object of the present invention is to provide such a method, device and software product which are able to alleviate, minimise or even eliminate the further actions needed for setting the recipient address and/or sender address.
The aforementioned object or objects of the invention is/are solved at least in parts by the features of the independent claims. Advantageous embodiments and further developments of the invention are set forth in the subclaims.